Professor Rein Taagepera: University of Toronto lecture “Size and Number of States over 5000 Years”

On Sunday, these organizations hosted a reception at Tartu College which included a presentation by Taagepera entitled “Kui Ajalugu Liikuma Hakkas” (When History began to Accelerate) and a celebratory dinner. The large crowd of guests were treated to Taagepera’s account and personal reflections on the years leading up to and during Estonia’s independence in 1991.

Before returning home to California on Monday, Professor Taagepera was a guest speaker at University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. This lecture was hosted by Professor Andres Kasekamp, the Chair of Estonian Studies. The subject of his U of T lecture was entitled “Sizes and Number of States over 5000 Years” and was an extract of his forthcoming book “More People, Fewer States: The Past and Future of World Populations and Empire States”.

In his introduction, Kasekamp presented the highlights of Taagepera’s personal and academic journey. After fleeing occupied Estonia in 1944 and after several years in Morocco, Taagepera immigrated to Canada where he completed his Bachelor Degree in Chemical Engineering in 1959 and his Masters degree in Physics in 1961 – both at the University of Toronto. Subsequently Taagepera completed his PhD in Physics in 1965 at the University of Delaware. In 1970 Taagepera joined the faculty of the University of California Irvine as a political scientist. His area of scholarly research has been the application of quantitative and modelling analysis to sociopolitical matters such as governance systems including empires and electoral systems. In this regard, Professor Taagepera is renowned and uniquely qualified – in applying truly scientific or mathematical analyses to the realm and essence of sociopolitical themes.